


Sensing an Issue (A Lunar Chronicles Fanfiction)

by lllee



Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Genre: Also apologies to AeroE people too I don't know how flight works, And I'm saying this as a STEM major, Cinder complains about wearing fancy clothes (again), Computer bugs, Cool spaceships, Cress is awkward BABEY and we love her, F/M, Gen, If you actually do CompSci/Electrical engineering and anything's wrong I apologize, Post-Canon, Questionable engineering choices, Scratch that everyone is awkward, They're STEM majors at heart you can't expect them to have normal human interaction, Why did nobody review this code, Yeah I'm a hackerman (sweats nervously), but it just be like that sometimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:28:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25045414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lllee/pseuds/lllee
Summary: Something seems to be up with the flight stability of the Rampion. Cinder is sure it's just Thorne messing around again, but Cress suspects it's a mechanical issue. Will they be able to figure out the cause of the janky steering (and maybe bond along the way)?
Relationships: Crescent Moon "Cress" Darnel & Linh Cinder, Crescent Moon "Cress" Darnel/Carswell Thorne, Kai/Linh Cinder
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	Sensing an Issue (A Lunar Chronicles Fanfiction)

“If Thorne shakes this ship one more time, I  _ swear _ …” Cinder ran her cyborg hand through the messy knots of her ponytail. Though she was excited to be in the Rampion with her friends again, set for a week-long tour to drop off medical aid supplies at several different distribution centers around the globe, she had forgotten how questionable Thorne’s piloting could sometimes be. Her stomach roiled.

“It’s not his fault. The steering on the Rampion has been a bit disjointed lately,” said Cress, who was curled up on the couch playing chess on her portscreen.

“Really, huh? Want me to check it out?”

“No, it’s fine. I’m sure you’re really busy, and you’re already in your dress…” Cress gestured at Cinder’s ceremonial robes, which had many thick layers of cloth and looked quite heavy.

“Whatever. I was getting sick of wearing these anyway.” Checking that the room was empty except for the two of them, Cinder peeled off her many layers of silk to reveal her cotton tank top underneath. She pulled on a pair of military cargo pants from the dresser behind her and popped out the screwdriver on one of her fingers. “Do you know which part specifically isn’t working?”

“I think it has to do with the thrusters firing unevenly? I’m not the best with hardware issues.”

“Well, you’re in luck.” Cinder strode off towards the engine room. Cress trailed behind, curious at seeing Cinder in action.

They entered the engine room. Cinder checked the control panel first. “That’s weird. This says that the thrusters are working optimally.”

“Does that mean the sensors are off?” Cress asked.

“Probably. Let me go check the thrusters themselves.” Cinder unscrewed a panel along the far wall of the room and observed the wiring inside. She frowned as she checked the configuration against the schematic in her head.

“That’s weird. Everything is wired correctly.”

“So it probably is a sensor calibration issue.”

Cinder nodded. “Can you check the computer input to make sure the sensor chip is transmitting properly?”

“I’m on it.” Cress approached the large terminal and pulled up the control panel. She entered a series of commands to bring up the internal diagnostics. “It’s just giving me the same numbers.”

Cinder disconnected the sensor chip. “How about now?”

Cress checked again. She pursed her lips.

“What is it?” Cinder asked.

“I think there might be a glitch in the coding. The system is supposed to report if the sensor is disconnected, but instead it’s just displaying the standard numbers.”

“Hmm. That’s really not good.”

Cress opened up the code to take a look. Cinder watched as she scanned through walls and walls of plain green text in record time. Eventually, Cress clicked her tongue.

“Found it?”

“Right here.” Cress pointed at a small block of code. “The developers accidentally wrote a conditional statement to be always true. Even if the sensor is malfunctioning, it can’t display the error message.”

“Isn’t that a pretty big error? How have they never caught it before?”

“It looks like it has a few sensors feeding in, so there’s redundancy to protect the system. If all the sensors fail, though, the system will fail.”

“I’ll have to tell the American Military when we make our stop there on Tuesday,” said Cinder, flexing the fingers on her cyborg hand. “And point out that you were the one who fixed it, of course.”

Cress blushed. Though she had been hailed as a public hero for over a year now, she still had a hard time getting used to praise. An incident like this would only make her even more embarrassed.

Cinder gathered the remaining three sensor chips, which apparently had all broken at some point. The crew’s harrowing escapades probably hadn’t helped protect the ship from wear and tear.

“Is it really okay to do that?” Cress asked.

“They’re all broken, anyway. I’ll have Iko use her internal sensors to make sure the stabilizers are equalized, and she can warn us if there’s an issue. And we’ll pick up some new sensors when we land this evening.”

Cress chewed on her lip.

“Is something wrong?”

“I was just thinking, if there’s any other issues on the ship, we should try to catch them now..”

Cinder puffed at her bangs. “I sure hope there aren’t. But let’s check.”

Cinder and Cress worked systematically through the remainder of the sensor chips. Cinder disconnected the components while Cress assessed the feedback responses. Aside from a minor calibration issue with one of the temperature control probes, all systems seemed in working order.

“I’m glad we did that. Now I won’t have to worry about any other operational issues,” said Cinder, stretching her shoulders so aggressively that her joints popped.

“Me too.” Cress took a deep breath. Though she had become close with all the members of the crew, she still had trouble opening up to most of them. “I really enjoyed this. I like having a chance to stretch my brain every once in a while.”

“Yeah. I’ve missed some of the mechanic work.” Cinder twirled a wrench in her fingers.

“The two of us made a pretty good team.” Cress felt her face heat up again.

Cinder tilted her head, confused by Cress’ sudden vulnerability. Cinder herself found it difficult sometimes to share her inner thoughts with her friends. Still, Cress’ sentiment made her happy. “I’m glad you think so. I agree.”

Cress awkwardly lifted her hand for a high five. Cinder slapped it with her organic hand. The two girls looked at each other for a moment before giggling.

“We should do this more often,” said Cress.

“New Beijing Palace has been in need of a communications system upgrade. Lately, some of the transmissions between different palace wings have been really laggy.”

“Consider it done.”

The girls were about to revel in their glory at having fixed the malfunction when the engine room door slammed open. “Cinder, where are you? We’re landing in fifteen minutes!” shouted Kai. His eyes widened as he saw Cinder’s attire.

Cinder and Cress exchanged glances. “Uh… Be right there?”

Kai shook his head. “I should have known this would happen. At least you’re having fun,” he said, the corners of his lips turning up into a smile.

A sandy brown head popped into the doorway. “Is that my favorite queen? And also Cinder?”

Cinder rolled her eyes. “I’ll have you know, we just fixed your ship, Thorne. You should be thanking us.”

Thorne slipped past Kai and planted a kiss on Cress’ cheek. “Don’t worry. I’m very grateful.”

Kai cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should be getting ready now, Cinder?”

“Of course.” Cinder smirked at her boyfriend. The four of them left the engine room and prepared for their landing back on Earth.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at writing fanfiction in a very long time! Hopefully I've improved somewhat, since I've been working on some independent personal writing projects. Let me know what you guys think!


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